Jay Z - Picasso Baby [A Performance Art Film]

Back in June, Jay Z made history by selling a million copies of an album weeks before it was scheduled to drop. In July, he followed that feat up by making his and director Mike Romanek‘s Picasso Baby video one of the most talked-about in recent history… nearly a month in advance of its debut. Now that Internet raconteurs have dissected the unorthodox shoot, which took the form of an impromptu dance party at NYC’s Pace Gallery, from every conceivable angle, we finally get a look at the finished product. After an opening scene in which Hova outlines his vision for the piece (“That’s what’s really exciting for me: bringing the worlds [of hip-hop and art] back together.”), Timbaland‘s beat drops and we see Shawn Carter getting down with the likes of Marina Abramović (whose 2010 installation, The Artist Is Present, inspired the video), Lorna Simpson and Andres Serrano, along with a variety of celebrities from outside the art world. Time to weigh in, readers: is Jay Z’s latest stunt brilliant, awful, or somewhere in between? Whatever your take, you can (of course) pick up Magna Carta Holy Grail wherever fine music is sold.